"So how should we approach this?" KY asked me. After being paired up, Lilly told us to go find a desolate part in the city and train. KY and I were in Jis, the Glacial Tower visible from where we were. We planned on going by there afterwards.

"Well, I don't know how you fight. What moves do you know?"

"Tri attack, signal beam, magic coat, and dark pulse."

I thought about this. "What's your secret?"

He looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"Your unnatural skill: what is it?"

He looked away. "If I tell you, I want you not to tell anyone else until I say so. My trick is very draining on me and I can't use it very often."

I nodded. "What is it?"

He looked back. "I have two tricks. The first one, which isn't too draining, is that I can choose which status my tri attack can inflict. If I want them to be frozen, I focus on the ice part, and if a status occurs, it will be frozen."

"That's neat. What's your second ability?"

He took a deep breath. "I can change my ability at will."

"Wait, what?" I thought I had been prepared for his answer. I was wrong. "You can just change your ability? You're capable of having adaptability, download, and analytic, right?"

"Yes, and I can switch to any one of those. I tend to favor adaptability, but in the last true battle I was in, I switched to download, and haven't switched again."

I was just amazed. "That's incredible. Why don't you want people to know about it?"

"The same reason I ended up joining this gang. Loads of other gangs wanted me. The ability to just change abilities astounded them. But they pictured someone who could switch multiple times in a battle with no consequence. I can switch at most two times in a battle. It just takes too much energy. I couldn't give them what they wanted. Then I met Lilly, and she informed me she was forming a gang. I immediately declined, but she insisted on me telling her why I wouldn't join. Once she heard what I could do, she told me what she expected."

"What was that?"

He smiled. "She expected that I do the best I can. Hearing this after being pressured for so long was very refreshing, and joining her meant that I wouldn't be pressured anymore."

I nodded. "It is a cool ability. I wish I could do something as cool as that."

He looked at me funnily. "What about your Psyche Scream?"

I looked down, my ears falling. "When it first happened, I was absolutely horrified. I thought I had completely frozen time and would be alone forever. I begged for them to unfreeze, and they did. Then I started figuring out I could make whoever I froze do what I commanded, but after the command, they unfroze. You would think it is something really cool, but it's been a curse. I can't control it, and sometimes I can't control what happens to the people I use it on. There have been moments when I've frozen someone and I couldn't get them to unfreeze for a long time. Every time it happens, I'm completely powerless, and wonder if they will ever be unfrozen again. When this happens to someone, they get scared of me, and tell everyone about what a monster I am."

"Have you ever tried to learn to control it?"

"Yeah, but it just wouldn't work. It's like it has a mind of its own. The only thing that is consistent with it is it happens when I'm scared. I've tried to be more brave, to see if I could stop it, but I just can't."

"Well at least now you don't have to be scared alone." I looked at him, and he winked at me. "You got us now. We can all freak out together." I smiled, and nodded.

He moved a decent distance away. "Now we should probably get started on our battle strategies. I think I have a good idea. I simply want you to use your toxic on me."

"Why?" I didn't want to poison him.

"Relax. I have an interesting theory. Your toxic comes in the form of a wave of energy. How long can you keep a wave of energy going like that?"

"I don't know." Every time I had used it, once the wave was created, I just let it move towards the target. I never actually tried to hold the wave.

"Well my theory is that if you hold the wave and I am the right distance away, I can use my magic coat we can make it even stronger by causing constructive interference. At certain distances, if I reflect the toxic back towards you, it should amplify the ones you are sending out. If I'm not the right distance away, then I could be making your toxic less powerful. We could use the lab to measure the wavelength, but I don't think that will be necessary. Just hold toxic for as long as you can, and I will do the rest."

I nodded, and let loose the attack. The wave radiated out at him, but a green shield appeared in front of him, and the attack started coming back this way. The wave became a lighter color, so I guessed that meant it was weakening it.

KY started slowly moving towards me. Just when I was almost out of energy, the wave became a very dark shade of purple. We both stopped. "Did it work?" I asked.

"Perfectly, and I now have the proper distance away I need to be. What else should we try?"

We worked the rest of the day, each of us coming up with creative ideas. Since we both mostly worked with special attacks, we went pretty well together. Finally, when we were satisfied, we went to Glacial tower for a quick rest and to see how everything was.

Ita was very conflicted. She had set up some tea and poffins for us when we arrived, and we were eating with her. "I still think that it was your fault for them coming to the tower, and I am furious about it, but I am extremely grateful for your help at holding them off. They left right after you disappeared."

"We're really sorry," I said. "Is the tower okay?"

"Oh, it's fine now. It didn't take too long to prepare, especially with Aurora's help. She still isn't living here, though."

"Is everyone in the tower okay?" KY asked.

"Yes, yes, everyone's fine. A few were injured, but no real harm was done. How's the Ice Prince?"

"He's healing right now," I said. "He'll be better in no time."

"Well that's good to hear. I don't understand what he's doing, getting into danger like this. He used to be very peaceful. I remember when he would enter contests with his trainer."

"He entered contests?" KY and I asked in unison. That was interesting. Ever since the contest hall became abandoned, the interest in contests dropped drastically.

She smiled. "You should have seen it. He was incredible. My trainer loved watching contests, and he was one of our favorites."

"What did he do?" KY asked.

"I don't think I can tell you. You just need to hope one day he shows you."

We thanked her for the tea, and went back to the base. Everyone was already there. Lilly called everyone back into the training room. "Okay, you've had a good while to practice, it's time to see what you've come up with. Whoever goes first will battle Elric and me privately, and then we will pick who they fight. Who wants to volunteer?"

We all looked at each other. "We would like to go first," Kykis said.

"Very well, then. The rest of you wait out here." Ore and Kykis followed her and Elric into the room, and the rest of us waited outside.

"How do you think they'll do?" Mark asked.

"I think it will be pretty good," Absolum said. "They both seem compatible enough in character, and their typing combination is something to be accounted for."

We waited for the battle to end, and Lilly came back out. "I have decided who they will fight. This will be a battle everyone watches. KY and Hydra, you will fight them."